'We’ve got some good footballers out there, but we didn’t look anywhere near a
team', said Pulis

It is a football manager’s equivalent of musical chairs and it is Tony Pulis, rather than Steve McClaren, who finds himself in trouble now that the Premier League music has stopped for another week.

West Bromwich Albion were dominated here in such a fashion that they look like the team who should be worrying about relegation. Poor in defence, timid in midfield and useless in attack, this was not like a Pulis team at all.

It meant Newcastle enjoyed a surprisingly comfortable afternoon and one of their best performances under McClaren, just when it looked as though the former England manager was in danger of getting the sack. They are out of the bottom three for only the fourth time this season.

The scoreline suggests the contest was close, but it was not. The Magpies had enough chances to win three games, not one. They looked like a team that has had £80m spent on it in the space of just eight months rather than expensively introduced strangers.

Whatever faults McClaren has – and there are still plenty of misgivings about him on Tyneside – he has a team that is surely good enough to avoid the drop and players who are playing for him.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, we got a reaction,” said McClaren, after his side’s inept display at Everton in midweek. You always wonder because we’ve had words since Wednesday. The first five minutes was the perfect reaction.

“The guys said in the warm up that they looked focused and we’ve said it all season, if we are focused, ready and perform like that and do it consistently we’ll win games.”

WBA, on the other hand, were poor, again. They were booed off after the home draw with Swansea in midweek and the fans who travelled to the North East were once again restless after Aleksandar Mitrovic had put the home team in the lead.

Georginio Wijnaldum, Mitrovic and Moussa Sissoko should all have extended Newcastle’s lead, but WBA, even after the introduction of Saido Berahino at half-time, lacked any real offensive threat.

There is nothing worse for a football fan than watching a team set up not to lose, lose 1-0, and that is precisely what happened here for those who travelled up from the west Midlands. Like McClaren, Pulis will be looking for a positive reaction to the criticism he dished out to his players.

“We have to dust ourselves down because I was really disappointed with that performance,” he said “But you get them. It’s about the reaction now.

‘We’ve got some good footballers out there, but we didn’t look anywhere near a team out of possession, never mind in possession. However, that’s only a second defeat in 10 games.”

Pulis needs to get Berahino back up to speed. He is West Brom’s most potent striker, but has been nullified by his desire to leave for months. That will not be happening until the summer, at the earliest, and the 22-year-old has much to prove to everyone at the club in the meantime.

“He’s missed a lot of games,” said Pulis, who denied the striker was over-weight, insisting he had merely put on muscle in the gym. “He’s missed half of the season really. We’re desperate to get him back involved and playing games and to be part of the team.”